164 The American Geologist. March, i89o 
But being a young man, and knowing the great leaning toward 
the complete uniformity of paloeontological rules, which pre- 
vailed in geology since 1836, I reluctantly accepted, as a com- 
promise, the Lias age as the probable one. Having lived in 
the intimacy of Alcide d'Orbigny, Louis Agassiz, de Verneuil, 
and de Koninck, all of whom then thought and professed 
that the same forms of fossils extended at the same time all 
over the world, disappeared all at the same moment, and were 
replaced directly by a special creation of new forms ; it was 
too much for me to oppose their views, although some facts 
had come already to my knowledge during my researches in 
the field in Europe and in America, which were contrary to 
that easy and sweeping doctrine ; and it was not until 
Barrande had demonstrated the existence of colonies, and 
Deshayes had maintained with more proofs, his old opinion, 
that forms, and sometimes even species, pass from one group 
to another, and even from one system to another, that I had 
the courage to state my views and observations, without being 
influenced any more by the uniformist theory. 
In my Geological map of the United States and the British 
provinces of North America^ with an explanatory text, etc., 
published in Boston, June, 1853, I represented the coal field of 
Richmond as Liassic. 
But during my exploration of the 35th parallel of latitude 
across the whole continent, I met the Trias and studied it on 
such a vast surface that I had no more hesitation ; and from 
that date, 1853-1854, 1 have classified the coal series of Rich- 
mond with the Trias, as the equivalent and homotaxis of the 
European Keuper, {Resume, of a geological reminiscence ex- 
tending from Napoleon at the junction of the Arkaiisas with 
the Mississippi to the Puehlo de Los Angeles in California, 
House Documents, 129, pp. 40-48, Washington, 1855; and 
Resume explicatif d'une carte geologique des Etats- TJnis, etc., 
in "Bulletin Soc. Geol. France," vol. xii, pp. 871-872, Mai, 
1855, Paris). 
About the same time Dr. E. Emmons was studying the coal 
series of North Carolina, and in his First Report of the 
geological survey of North Carolina, Raleigh, 1852, at p. 143, 
he says that the coal rocks of North Carolina (Deep river coal) 
belong to the "Upper New Red sandstone," which is the 
Keuper. Misled by the erroneous classification of Murchison 
